Planes, Traines & Automobiles

I have had several posts regarding my different experiences with airplane travel. Most of my stories were about the airlines themselves or delays in the airport. I have not had too many about people that I have met.

On auto trips, it is usually me & the boys. So nothing too exciting there on road trips either. They all have been pretty uneventful.

BUT, within my 2nd train ride, I had one of the most unusual experiences we the passengers:

Part 1 - St. Louis to Bloomington Normal, IL

There is this middle aged lady sitting a row in front of me to the right. She is talking to a lady a row in front of her & I am just being nosey. So, she is telling the other lady that she is going home from St. Louis & she had some type of medical thing done in St. Louis. She proceeds to tell the lady that when she gets home she is going to a wedding on Halloween. The wedding is in the morning & the reception is a costume part at night. So this story gets my attention & I then start taking more of an interest in this lady. They finish their conversation and the middle aged lady goes to the snack cart & gets some type of Vodka drink. This lady is hard core because she makes the drink & downs half of it in one drink. I am thinking that this could get interesting. Some time later I notice she is throwing up. She is still in her seat! I walk past her to throw something away & on my way back I decide to assess the situation a little more. Well she has a cup & she is leaning over in her seat throwing up. I listen to her for about 20 minutes. The whole time she does not leave her seat & the whole time I am totally getting grossed out & thinking that I should do something. At one point someone calls her & she answers the phone & tell them that she is sick & hangs up. Then someone else calls her & she answers. She talks on the phone & continues to throw up while she is on the phone!!

Then she finally stops, composes herself & takes another call. I hear her telling the person on the phone that the Dr. in St. Louis told her that she is on the list for a new LIVER, but she cannot have a transplant until her cancer is in remission. I'm not quite sure what type of cancer she has but she has liver problems & I'm guessing the Vodka does not help. Well she tells the person on the phone that she thinks that she has the flu. I'm thinking it was the trip to the Dr. mixed with the Vodka. But whatever.

Then the lady makes ANOTHER call & tells the person on the other line that she LOST her teeth. Where? When? I'm not sure, but she had no teeth when I saw her again.

Part 2 - Bloomington Normal to Chicago

After the first part of the trip I was really looking forward to a quite end, no such luck. The guy sitting right in front of me apparently was aware of everything going on next to him too, so the told everyone that wanted to sit across from him that a lady was throwing up the whole time. Well a lot of people boarded the train. There was a guys sitting behind me that realized that he knew some relatives of the lady sitting across from him because he was CELL MATES with them!! So I find out that he has been in & out of prison for the past 10 years & I got to hear 2 or 3 of his stories on how he made it to prison. THEN he informs the girl that the guys in the front of the car all just got out of prison. There were like 10 of them. That made me EXCITED! I was never so happy to get off the train. (Did not take pictures of them)